Books: The Native Born

I >> I. A. R. Wylie >> The Native Born

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"Why did you tell me?" He took an involuntary step toward her.
Something in his face relaxed beneath the force of an uncontrollable
emotion. He was asking a question which had hammered at the gates of
his mind day after day and in every waking hour. "Why?" he repeated.

"I have told you--because I had to. I had to speak the truth. I
couldn't build up my new life on an old lie. You had to know. I had
won your love by a trick. I had to show you the lowest and worst part
of myself before the best in me could grow--the best in me, which is
yours."

"You are raving!"

"I am not raving. You must see I am not. Look at me. I am calmer than
you, though I face certain death. I knew when I came here that the
chances were I should be killed before I even saw you, but I had to
risk that. I had to win your trust back somehow, honestly and fairly.
I can not live without your trust."

"Beatrice!" The name escaped him almost without his knowledge. He saw
tears spring to her eyes.

"It is true. Your love and your trust have become my life. Then I was
unworthy of both. I tried to make myself worthy. I did what I could. I
told you the truth--I threw away the only thing that mattered to me. I
could not hold your love any longer by a lie--I loved you too much!"

For that moment the passionate energy of her words, the sincerity and
eloquence of her glance, swept back every thought of suspicion. He
stood stupefied, almost overwhelmed. Mechanically his lips formed
themselves to a few broken sentences.

"You can not know what you are saying. You are beside yourself. Once,
in my ignorance, I believed it possible, but now I know that it could
never be. Your race despises mine--"

"I do not care what you are nor to whom you belong!" she broke in,
exulting. "You are the man who taught me to believe that there is
something in this world that is good, that is worthy of veneration;
who awoke in me what little good I have. I love you. If I could win
you back--"

"What then?"

"I would follow you to the world's end!"

"As my wife?"

"As your wife!"

He held out his arms toward her, impulse rising like the sun high and
splendid above the mists of distrust. It was an instant's
forgetfulness, which passed as rapidly as it had come. His arms sank
heavily to his side.

"Have you thought what that means? If you go with me, you must leave
your people for ever."

"I would follow you gladly."

He shook his head.

"You do not understand. You must leave them now--now when I go against
them."

"No!" she broke in roughly. "You can't, Nehal, you can't. You have the
right to be bitter and angry; you have not the right to commit a
crime. And it would be a crime. You are plunging thousands into
bloodshed and ruin--" He lifted his hand, and the expression in his
eyes checked her.

"So it is, after all, a bargain that you offer me!" he said. "You are
trying to save them. You offer a high price, but I am not a merchant.
I can not buy you, Beatrice."

"It is not a bargain!" For the first time she faltered, taken aback by
the pitiless logic of his words. "Can't you see that? Can't you see
that, however much I loved you, I could not act otherwise than implore
you to turn back from a step that means destruction for those bound to
me by blood and country? Could I do less?"

"No," he said slowly.

She held out her hands to him.

"Oh, Nehal, turn back while there is yet time! For my sake, for yours,
for us all, turn back from a bloody, cruel revenge. The power is
yours. Be generous. If we have wronged you, we have suffered and are
ready to atone. _I_ am ready to atone. I _can_ atone, because I love
you. I have spoken the truth to you. I have laid my soul bare to you
as I have done to no other being. Won't you trust me?"

His eyes met hers with a somber, hopeless significance which cut her
to the heart.

"I can't," he said. "I can't. That is what you have taught me--to
distrust you--and every one."

She stood silent now, paralyzed by the finality of his words and
gesture. It was as though the shadow of her heartless folly had risen
before her and become an iron wall of unrelenting, measured
retribution against which she beat herself in vain. He lifted his head
higher, seeming to gather together his shaken powers of self-control.

"I can not trust you," he said again, "nor can I turn back. But there
is one thing from the past which can not be changed. I love you. It
seems that must remain through all my life. And because of that love I
must save you from the death that awaits your countrymen." He smiled
in faint self-contempt. "It is not for your sake that I shall save
you; it is because I am too great a coward, and can not face the
thought that anything so horrible should come near you." He turned to
two native soldiers behind him and gave an order. When he faced
Beatrice again he saw that she held a revolver in her hand.

"You do not understand," she said. "You say you mean to save me, but
that is not in your power. It is in your power to save us all, but not
one alone. I know what my people have resolved to do. There are weak,
frightened women among them, but not one of them will fall into your
hands alive. Whatever happens, I shall share their fate."

Though her tone was quiet and free from all bravado, he knew that she
was not boasting. He knew, too, that she was desperate.

"You can not force me to kill you," he said sternly.

"I think it possible," she answered. She was breathing quickly, and
her eyes were bright with a reckless, feverish excitement. But the
hand that held the revolver pointed at the men behind him was
steady--steadier than his own.

Nehal Singh motioned back the two natives who had advanced at his
order.

"You play a dangerous game," he said, "and, as before, your strength
lies in my weakness--in my folly. But this time you can not win. My
word is given--to my people."

"I shall not plead with you," she returned steadily, "and you may be
sure I shall not waver. I am not afraid to die. I had hoped to atone
for all the wrong that has been done you with my love for you, Nehal.
I had hoped that then you would turn away from this madness and become
once more our friend. To this end I have not hesitated to trample on
my dignity and pride. I have not spared myself. But you will not
listen, you are determined to go on, and I"--she caught her breath
sharply--"surely you can understand? I love you, and you have made
yourself the enemy of my country. Death is the easiest, the kindest
solution to it all."

Nehal Singh's brows knitted themselves in the anguish of a man who
finds himself thwarted by his own nature. He tried not to believe her,
and indeed, in all her words, though they had rung like music, his
ear, tuned to suspicion, had heard the mocking undercurrent of
laughter. She had laughed at him secretly through all those months
when he had offered up to her the incense of an absolute faith, an
unshared devotion. Even now she might be laughing at him, playing on
that in him which nothing could destroy or conceal--his love for her.
And yet--! Behind him he heard the uneasy stir of impatient feet, the
hushed clash of arms. He stood between her and a certain, terrible
death. One word from him, and it would be over--his path clear. But he
could not speak that word. Treacherous and cruel as she had been, the
halo of her first glory still hung about her. He saw her as he had
first seen her--the golden image of pure womanhood--and, strange,
unreasoning contradiction of the human heart, beneath the ashes of his
old faith a new fire had kindled and with every moment burned more
brightly. Unquenchable trust fought out a death struggle with
distrust, and in that conflict her words recurred to him with poignant
significance: "Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all."
For him also there seemed no other escape. He pointed to the revolver.

"For whom is that?" he asked.

"I do not know--but I will make them kill me."

"Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and
bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and
fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your
power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country?
Why don't you shoot her enemy?"

She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He
turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung
himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His
love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst
through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her
against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and
against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His
word was given.

"Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!"

"I should despise myself, and you would despise me--even more than you
do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my
folly has jeopardized."

"At least go back to them--do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's
sake!--I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough--." He
stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned
with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no
part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all
that mattered.

"I can not," she said.

"Beatrice, do not deceive yourself. Though my life is nothing to
me--though I would give it a dozen times to save you--I can not do
otherwise than go on. I may be weak, but I shall be stronger than my
weakness. My word is given!"

He spoke with the tempestuous energy of despair. The minutes were
passing with terrible swiftness, and any moment the sea behind him
might burst its dam and sweep her and him to destruction. Already in
the distance he heard the dull clamour of voices raised in angry
remonstrance at the delay. Only those immediately about him were held
in awed silence by the power of his personality. Again Beatrice shook
her head. She stood in the doorway which opened out into the garden
where the besieged had taken refuge. There was no other way. He
advanced toward her. Instantly she raised her revolver and pointed it
at the first man behind him.

"If I fire," she said, "not even you will be able to hold them back."

It seemed to her that she stood like a frail wall between two
overwhelming forces--on the one side, Nehal with his thousands; on the
other, Nicholson--alone, truly, but armed with a set and pitiless
resolve. A single sentence, which had fallen upon her ears months
before, rose now out of an ocean of half-forgotten memories:
"Nicholson is the best shot in India," some one had said: "he never
misses." And still Nehal advanced. His jaws were locked, his eyes had
a red fire in them. She knew then that the hour of hesitation was
over, and that in that desperate struggle she had indeed lost.
Uncontrollable words of warning rushed to her lips.

"Nehal--turn back! Turn back!"

He did not understand her. He thought she was still pleading with him.

"I can not--God have pity on us both!"

Then she too set her lips. She could not betray the last hope of that
heroic handful of men and women behind her. He must go to his
death--and she to hers. She fired,--whether with success or not, she
never knew. In that same instant another sound broke upon their
ears--the sound of distant firing, the rattle of drums and the high
clear call of a trumpet. Nehal Singh swung around. She caught a
glimpse of his face through the smoke, and she saw something written
there which she could not understand. She only knew that his features
seemed to bear a new familiarity, as though a mask had been torn from
them, revealing the face of another man, of a man whom she had seen
before, when and where she could not tell. She had no time to analyze
her emotions nor the sense of violent shock which passed over her. She
heard Nehal Singh giving sharp, rapid orders in Hindustani. The room
emptied. She saw him follow the retreating natives. At the door he
turned and looked back at her. At no time had his love for her
revealed itself more clearly than in that last glance.

"The English regiment has come to help you," he said. "Fate has
intervened between us this time. May we never meet again!"

He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he
had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson
and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room
by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away
as he saw her face.

"You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all
terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some
desperate fighting. We must all stick together."

She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity
and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what
she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men
blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow.

CHAPTER X

TRAVERS

They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when
the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and
touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none
complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the
other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary
alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus
she had been for a week--a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle
against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain
upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side
of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the
cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and
indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her
and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he
had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her."
And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more.

Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been
praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful
breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the
bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together,
listening. They could do nothing--not even help the wounded men who
lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights
were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless
struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder
lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle
against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination.

"I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There
is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few
hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."

Her rough, tired voice had a ring of unconquerable pride in it. She
was thinking of the gallant charge her husband's men had made only two
weeks before; how they had broken through the wall of the enemy, and,
cheering, had rushed to meet the besieged garrison. That had been a
moment of rejoicing, transitory and deceptive. Then the wall closed in
about them again, and they knew that they were trapped.

"Perhaps we can hold out till help comes," Beatrice said.

She tried not to be indifferent. For the sake of her companions she
would gladly have felt some desire for life, but in truth it had no
value for her. She could think of nothing but the evil she had done
and of the atonement that had been denied her. It was to no purpose
that she worked unceasingly for the wounded. The sense of
responsibility never left her. Each moan, each death-sigh brought the
same meaning to her ear: "You have helped to do this--this is your
work."

"No help will come," Mrs. Carmichael said, shaking her head at the
darkness. "When a whole province rises as this has done, it takes
months to organize a sufficient force, and we shan't last out many
days. I wonder what people in England are saying. How well I can see
them over their breakfast cups! Oh, dear, I mustn't think of breakfast
cups, or I shall lose my nerve." She laughed under her breath, and
there was a long silence.

Presently the door of the bungalow opened, letting in a stream of
moonlight. It was closed instantly, and soft footfalls came over the
boarded floor.

"Who is it?" Mrs. Carmichael whispered.

"I--Lois," was the answer. The new-comer crept down by Beatrice's side
and leaned her head against the warm shoulder. "I am so tired," she
said faintly. "I have been with Archibald. He has been moaning so. Mr.
Berry says he is afraid mortification has set in. It is terrible."

"Poor little woman!" Beatrice put her arm about the slender figure and
drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can
do no good just now."

"Thank you. I will, if you don't mind. You will wake me if anything
happens, won't you?"

"Yes, I promise." It gave Beatrice a sense of comfort to have Lois
near her. Very gently she passed her hand over the aching forehead,
and presently Lois fell into a sleep of absolute exhaustion.

By mutual consent, Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice ceased to talk, but
when suddenly there was a movement close to them, and a dim light
flashed over the partition, they exchanged a glance of meaning.

"That is my husband," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "Something is going
to happen. Listen!"

She was not wrong in her supposition. The Colonel had entered the next
room, followed by Nicholson and Saunders, and had closed the door
carefully after him. All three men carried lanterns. They glanced
instinctively at the wooden partition which divided them from the four
women, but Carmichael shook his head.

"It's all right," he said. "They must be fast asleep, poor souls.
Let's have a look at these fellows." He went over to a huddled-up
figure lying in the shadow. The corner of a military cloak had been
thrown over the face. He drew it on one side and then let it drop.
"Gone!" he said laconically. He passed on to the next. There were in
all three men ranged against the wall. Two of them were dead. "Martins
told me they couldn't last," Colonel Carmichael muttered. "It is
better for them. They are out of it a little sooner, that's all." The
third man was Travers. He lay on his back, his face turned slightly
toward the wall, his eyes closed. He seemed asleep. The Colonel nodded
somberly. "Another ten hours," he calculated.

He came back to the table, where the others waited, and drew out a
paper from his pocket.

"Give me your light a moment, Nicholson," he said.

No one spoke while he examined the list before him. All around them
was a curious hush--a new thing in their struggle, and one that seemed
surcharged with calamity. After a moment Colonel Carmichael looked up.
He was many years the senior of his companions, but just then there
seemed no difference in years between them. They were three wan,
haggard men, weakened with hunger, exhausted with sleepless watching.
That week had killed the youth in two of them.

"Geoffries has just given me this," Carmichael said. "It is a list of
our provisions. We have enough food, but there is no fresh water. The
enemy has cut off the supply. We could not expect them to do
otherwise." He waited, and then, as neither spoke, he went on: "I have
spoken with the others. You know, gentlemen, we can not go on another
twenty-four hours without water. We have made a good fight for it, but
this is the end. We must look the fact in the face."

"Surely they must know at headquarters what a state we are in--"
Saunders began.

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.

"No doubt they know, but they can not help in time. This is not a
petty frontier business. It is something worse--a rising with a leader.
A rising with a leader is a lengthy business to tackle, and it
requires its victims. In this case we are the victims." He smiled
grimly. "We have only one thing left to do--make a dash for it while we
have the strength. You must know as well as I do that there is
scarcely anything worth calling a hope, but it's a more agreeable way
of dying than being starved out like rats and then butchered like
sheep. I know these devils." He glanced around the shadowy room with a
curious light in his eyes. "My best friend was murdered in this room,"
he added. "Personally, I prefer a fair fight in the open."

"When do you propose to make the start, Colonel?" Nicholson asked.

"Within an hour. The night favors us. The women must be kept in the
center as much as possible. I have given Geoffries special charge over
them. They will be told at the last moment. There is no use in
spoiling what little rest they have had." He drew out a pencil and
began to scribble a despatch on the back of an old letter. "I advise
you gentlemen to do likewise," he said. "Very often a piece of paper
gets through where a man can not, and it is our bounden duty to supply
the morning periodicals with as much news as possible."

For some minutes there was no sound save that of the pencils scrawling
the last messages of men with the seal of death already stamped upon
their foreheads. All three had forgotten Travers, and yet from the
moment they had begun to speak he had been awake and listening. He sat
up now, leaning upon his elbow.

"Nicholson!" he said faintly.

Nicholson turned and came to his side.

"Hullo!" he said. "Awake, are you? How are you?"

Travers made no immediate answer; he took Nicholson's hand in a
feverish clasp and drew him nearer.

"I am in great pain," he said. "You don't need to pretend. I know. The
fear of death has been on me all day. Just now I am not afraid. Is
there no hope?"

"You mean--for us? None."

Travers nodded.

"I heard you talking, but I wanted to make sure. It has all been my
fault--every bit of it. It's decent of you not to make me feel it
more. You are not to blame--her. You know I tempted her, I made her
help me. She isn't responsible. At any rate, she made a clean breast
of it--that's something to her credit. I didn't want to--I never meant
to. I am not the sort that repents. But this last week you have been
so decent, and Lois such a plucky little soul--she ought to hate
me--and perhaps she does--but she has done her best. Nicholson, are
you listening? Can you hear what I say? It's so damned hard for me to
talk."

"I can hear," Nicholson said kindly. "Don't worry about what can't be
helped." In spite of everything, he pitied the man, and his tone
showed it.

Travers lifted himself higher, clinging to the other's shoulder. His
voice began to come in rough, uneven jerks.

"But it can be helped--it must be helped! Don't you see--I came
between you and Lois purposely. From the first moment you spoke of her
I knew that you loved her--and I wanted her. I never gave your
message. I didn't dare. You are the sort of man a woman cares for--a
woman like Lois. I couldn't risk it. But now--well, I'm done, and
afterward she will be free--"

Nicholson drew back stiffly.

"You are talking nonsense," he said, in a colder tone. "No one wants
you to die--and in any case, you know very well we have no chance of
getting through this alive."

Travers seized his arm. His eyes shone with a painful excitement.

"Yes--yes!" he stammered. "You have a chance--a sure hope. I can save
you; I can--atone. That's what I want. Only you must help me. I am a
dying man. I want you to bring me to the Rajah--at once. Only five
minutes with him--that will be enough. Then he will let you go--he
must!"

Nicholson freed himself resolutely from the clinging hands.

"You exaggerate your power," he said, "and, besides, what you ask is
an impossibility."

He turned away, but Travers caught his arm and held him with a
frantic, desperate strength.

"Then if you will not help me--send Miss Cary to me," he pleaded. "I
must speak to her."

Nicholson looked down into the dying face with a new interest. He had
no suspicion of the burden with which Travers' soul was laden, and yet
he was conscious now that the matter was urgent and of an importance
which he could not estimate.

"I will tell her," he said. "Stay quiet a minute. We have no time to
lose."

Travers nodded and fell back on to his rough couch. His eyes closed
and he seemed to sleep, but as Beatrice knelt down by his side he
roused himself and looked at her with the intensity of a man who has
gathered his last strength for a last great purpose.

"I am dying," he whispered thickly; "I know it and I don't care. I am
past caring. But before I die I want to atone; I want, if I can, to
save Lois. I care for her in my poor way, and I would like her to be
happy. Are you listening?"

"I am listening," Beatrice answered gravely. "Do you think I could
close my ears when you speak of atonement?"

He clutched her hand.

"You would be glad to atone for all the mischief we have done?"

"I would give my life."

"Is the Colonel there? I can't see clearly. Colonel, I want you to
hear what I have to say."

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